Star Gazing & The Worlds Driest Desert

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After the joys of Easter Island we resumed our march North towards Bolivia. Easter Island was a spur of the moment trip, but it gave us the opportunity to head up through Northern Chile something we weren´t planning to do.

Firt stop from Santiago was La Serena, a beach resort about 7 hours north of the Chilean capital. Its the second oldest town in Chile (we haven´t worked out what the oldest is) and has quite a colonl feel. That though wasn´t the reason we headed there. That part of Chile is one of the best places in the world to look at stars bcause of the minimal amont of light pollution and minimal amout of dust in he atmosphere in that region. Hence the cellestial objects are pretty clear and countries from all over the world have set up observatories there (including the Euro Space Program who built the VLT).

Anyway, we got picked up at our hostel, thre were four of us, Ann and me and Kate and Top an English couple on their 3 month honeymoon. We got to the Mamalluca observatory about 30 mins ahead of our scheduled timeslot, but that wasn´t a problem because our driver, Antonio had organised a "special" viewing and the 4 of us spent 30 mins with an observatory guy, Hugo who showed us a variety of things, some of which we saw again later in the official tour. I think Ann probably summed it up best when Hugo showed her Saturn through the telescope......"F*ck me, f*ck me that f*cking amazing! A descriptin repeated by our English friends. If you are that area it is definitely worth the effort!

From La Serena it was an overnight bus to San Pedro de Atacama. As the name suggests its right in the Atacama desert apparently the driest desert in the world (haven´t checked facts on that one so don´t shoot me). The town itself is a quaint town made of mud brick houses with dirt streets. It exists primarily as a toursit town although there is some mining mainly salt and copper in the region as well.

Upon arrival and dropping the bags off at our hostel we headed to a travel agency to arrange outward travel. Ann and I had decided to bypass Salta and Agentna and head from San Pedro to Uyuni in Bolivia via the famous salt flats.....more on that later. That arranged Ann, Tom and Kate decided to make the most of our time in San Pedro. Tom and Kate were leaving the next day to head to La Paz and onto Cusco for their Inca trail trek. Given time was short we decided to do the Valle de Luna sunset tour that evening and then double up with a trip to the Tatio Geysers the next morning.

Valle de Luna is in the Atacama desert and is an expanse of sand, rock and salt with a moon like apperance. At sunset we climbed to the top of a sand dune and watched the sun disappear behind a ridge and the watched the Valley turn a rich red colour and then the Andes behind them turn a similarly rich colour. We headed back to San Pedro and had dinner where Ann introduced Kate to Pisco Sours and the most was made of happy hour.

The alarm went off at 3:40 am......hmmmm maybe pisco´s last night weren´t a great idea...or maybe not sleeping well on a bus the night before was the problem......anyway after a struggle we got dressed and waited for our pick up. The drive took about an hour and a half and got us to the Tatio geysers at around half six where first light was just making its presence felt. We stretched and got off the bus and had our first taste of altitude (well my reacquiantance and Ann´s first). They are at 4320m, so there was a degree of dizziness, lethargy an shortness of breath when we stpped off the minivan. They are impressive though and at dawn they are at their most active with underground springs heated by magma breaking through fissurs to bubble and steam......if the night before had been a trip to the moon, this was a trip to the age of the dinasours!

After breakfast we warmed up with a dip in some thermal springs. Being so high and being so early in the morning the temperature was barely aboe zero so the water was the warmest place to be. The quick dash after stripping to swimmers and getting into the water was only matched by the even more desprate dash to get out, dry and dress super quickly!

So that´s it for Chile and Argentina. The next 4 months we will be in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. They have been amazing we´re thoroughly enjoyed them though there are still so many places that we just have no been able to get to.

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Photos

The Morning Steam
Taken at the Tatio Geysers, some 4320m above sea level